Fact Check, Gun Control and Suicide

Statistics do not support a connection between gun control and US suicide rates

In an article in the July 17, 2016 edition of the Washington Post, "Want to Control Suicide? Control Guns," Kim Soffen argues that to control suicide in the U.S., stricter gun control, like that in Britain, Canada, France, and Australia, is required. Extrapolating from statistics on suicide rates from firearms in these countries, the Post concludes that the suicide rate in the U. S. would drop by 20-38 percent if the stricter gun control laws in these countries were implemented here. The facts do not support the argument.

There is no relation between suicide rate and gun ownership rates around the world. According to the 2016 World Health Statistics report, (2) suicide rates in the four countries cited as having restrictive gun control laws have suicide rates that are comparable to that in the U. S.: Australia, 11.6, Canada, 11.4, France, 15.8, UK, 7.0, and USA 13.7 suicides/100,000. By comparison, Japan has among the highest suicide rates in the world, 23.1/100,000, but gun ownership is extremely rare, 0.6 guns/100 people.

Suicide is a mental health issue. If guns are not available other means are used. Poisoning, in fact, is the most common method of suicide for U. S. females according to the Washington Post (34 % of suicides), and suffocation the second most common method for males (27%).

Secondly, gun ownership rates in France and Canada are not low, as is implied in the Post article. The rate of gun ownership in the U. S. is indeed high at 88.8 guns/100 residents, but gun ownership rates are also among the world’s highest in the other countries cited. Gun ownership rates in these countries are are as follows: Australia, 15, Canada, 30.8, France, 31.2, and UK 6.2 per 100 residents. (3,4) Gun ownership rates in Saudia Arabia are comparable to that in Canada and France, with 37.8 guns per 100 Saudi residents, yet the lowest suicide rate in the world is in Saudia Arabia (0.3 suicides per 100,000).

Fourth, the primary factors affecting suicide rates are personal stresses, cultural, economic, religious factors and demographics. According to the WHO statistics, the highest rates of suicide in the world are in the Republic of Korea, with 36.8 suicides per 100,000, but India, Japan, Russia, and Hungary all have rates above 20 per 100,000; roughly twice as high as the U.S. and the four countries that are the basis for the Post’s calculation that gun control would reduce U.S. suicide rates by 20 to 38 percent. Lebanon, Oman, and Iraq all have suicide rates below 1.1 per 100,000 people--less than 1/10 the suicide rate in the U. S., and Afghanistan, Algeria, Jamaica, Haiti, and Egypt have low suicide rates that are below 4 per 100,000 in contrast to 13.7 suicides/100,000 in the U. S.

Gun control is a separate issue. The arguments on both sides of the gun control debate are well known, and neither side is well served by specious arguments. Neither can the tragedy of suicide be addressed by misdiagnosing the problem.

Reducing suicide rates in the U. S. is not as simple as instituting more restrictive gun control laws. Suicide is a complex issue, best addressed by grappling with the difficult problems of social and economic disparities and better access to mental healthcare. (6)

I believe that, very unfortunately, guns are easily available to purchase illegally because there are so many of them. We are up to our armpits in illegally obtained guns. Felons and mentally ill people can easily obtain illegal guns. Even new laws restricting the ownership of firearms or laws that confiscate firearms won't make any difference.

I do not own any firearms, myself. I never wanted to. I always felt that if anyone broke into my home to steal from me I would treat it like a fire and just bolt out the window, run to a neighbor's home, and call 911 from there.

But, as an older, retired person, I just don't know anymore. I'm wondering if perhaps I do need to buy a gun? I can't easily just run away anymore, I can't just bolt out a window anymore if someone breaks into my home. I am physically unable to protect myself anymore. Maybe I do need a gun...?

But one of the reasons I never wanted to own a handgun is that they are very efficient if you want to commit suicide.

If you are concerned about gun ownership because of suicide, don't consider owning a firearm. I recently realized that Hemingway was younger than I am now when he committed suicide. What a loss.

As to your second point, I was recently interviewed for a documentary about the consequences of shooting someone from the perspective of the shooter. Even when the shooting is "justified" people must live with the consequences, and that is often difficult. I do realize, though, that criminals do take advantage of vulnerable people including the elderly, so I do understand your quandary.

Your article comes up with some very good points. Here in australia we have many road accidents that are very suspicious. Males often joke privately about this as a "way out" if things get too bad. We also have people "falling under trains" at a high rate. I know this because our local train line is stopped quite frequently due to "accidents" which are never reported in the newspapers. These are again, very suspicious accidents. There are no reliable stats on suspicious deaths which artificially lowers/hides the true suicide rate here. Researchers here have complained at the dearth of true statistics because of this.

I would rather someone shoot themselves at home then take a large heavy metal object onto the roads with the intention of causing a fatal crash! In fact, we have a lot of suspicious truck/car crashes where the car "veered to the wrong side of the road". So now we have collateral damage of psychologically scarring the train & truck driver(s) as well as any bystander witnesses and first responders (police, ambulance etc).

I am sick of this nanny state rubbish here that says we can't own guns. As you point out, and as we find here; all the criminals have a large and continuing supply of firearms. In fact, we recently had a 15 year old religionist shoot at a police station and kill an accountant. If a 15 year old radical religionist can get a handgun, then all the other arguments about gun restrictions are shown to be lies. It is the honest people who are denied the right to defend themselves because of these idiot bleeding hearts and their idiotic illogical bleatings. We also recently had another radical crackpot religionist hold many people hostage in a cafe (with his illegal gun!). If any one of these people had a gun, the whole thing would have been sorted out quite quickly. The police were useless and took far too long before they finally just shot the religiionist crackpot (who was well known to them, I might add!)

What I am saying is very un-politically correct here. But it is my opinion and I will take on any self-righteous bleeding heart(s) that deny me my right to express my opinion. Thank goodness for your second amendment.

You list the UK suicide rate at 7. I assume you got this from the WHO but their number conflicts with the number from the UK government, who states 10.1.

If you google "UK suicide rate", you'll find links to the UK Office of National Statistics. This would seem to further confirm your findings. I don't know where the WHO gets their numbers, but I'd trust the UK government over them.

What your article ignores is how lethal guns are. People who attempt suicide with a gun will die 90% of the time. While those who attempt suicide with poison will die only 5% of the time. And of those who survive a suicide attempt, only 10% will die from a subsequent attempt.

So while guns may not have an effect on the number of suicide attempts, it certainly has an effect on suicide deaths.

If guns are so much more lethal than other methods, why is the suicide rate in Australia the same (or very close) to that of the US? Why does Japan, which has essentially no guns, have a much higher rate?

We mustn’t conflate suicide deaths and suicide attempts. The two are related but influenced by different factors. People attempt suicide basically because they are experiencing acute depression and a sense of hopelessness. There are a myriad of factors (social, economic, mental health, cultural, etc.) that would cause someone to attempt suicide. Suicide deaths on the other hand are a result of how many people attempt suicide and what method they use. As I explained in my previous post, not all suicide attempts result in death.

So let’s apply this to your example of Japan. A study done in 2016 estimates that there are 530,000 suicide attempts annually in Japan. A very high number. Which means that Japan has more problems that cause people to attempt suicide. That resulted in about 22,000 deaths in 2016. That means a little over 4% of attempts resulted in death. Again, as I stated in my previous post, 90% of attempts with a gun result in death.

So what do you think would happen if guns were available in Japan and used to attempt suicide at the same rate as here in the US? Guns are used in about 6% of attempts in the US (and account for over half of the total deaths from suicide). If you do the math, it would result in an additional 28,000 deaths. If you apply this to Australia, you will see a similar result. (63,000 attempts, 2,866 deaths in 2016)

So I reiterate my point that guns may not affect the number of suicide attempts but it certainly affects the number of suicide deaths.

For one, this is an incredible hand wave at a very statistically relevant fact:
> The rate of gun ownership in the U. S. is indeed high at 88.8 guns/100 residents, but gun ownership rates are also among the world’s highest in the other countries cited. Gun ownership rates in these countries are are as follows: Australia, 15, Canada, 30.8, France, 31.2, and UK 6.2 per 100 residents. (3,4) Gun ownership rates in Saudia Arabia are comparable to that in Canada and France, with 37.8 guns per 100 Saudi residents, yet the lowest suicide rate in the world is in Saudia Arabia (0.3 suicides per 100,000).

The US is statistically in it's own league when compared to those other numbers. It's misleading to show this stat and claim that the other countries noted are comparable (they are by definition comparable, in that the US has a lot more guns per person than anyone else)

Next:

> Third, recent statistics in the state of Florida show that nearly one third of the guns used in suicides are obtained illegally, putting these firearm deaths beyond control through gun laws.(5)

Good example of figures never lie, but lier's figure.

By this very reasoning, 2/3s of guns were obtained legally. This means that you can make an enormous dent (66.6%) by banning them. Cannot believe that you used this as evidence.

Lastly:
> There is no relation between suicide rate and gun ownership rates around the world.

Is a bold statement, (psych today won't let me link to sources directly, but using NCBI.nlm.nih.gov)

/pmc/articles/PMC4984734/
> We found a strong relationship between state-level firearm ownership and firearm suicide rates among both genders, and a relationship between firearm ownership and suicides by any means among male, but not female, individuals.

/pmc/articles/PMC4566551/
> The results are thus supportive of the potential of handgun legislation to have an impact on suicide rates.

/pubmed/17426563
> Household firearm ownership levels are strongly associated with higher rates of suicide, consistent with the hypothesis that the availability of lethal means increases the rate of completed suicide.

/pubmed/12192220
> Where firearm ownership levels are higher, a disproportionately large number of people die from suicide.

And 50% of US suicides are with guns. The biggest question here is: whether people would be more likely to kill themselves if they had access to a gun at a moment of weakness -vs- not having a quick, one trigger solution and holding off until they find another means or that suicidal intent subsides with time.